Prettifying the world one nail at a time.

Friday, May 31, 2013

1. The Lieutenant, who convinced me and is cofounder and coblogger and

2. The friend who got me into all this madness in the first place!

She sent me some links of cute nail art a few years ago and from that moment on I kept on buying until I could reproduce everything! Today we celebrate her birthday and since she is abroad and I cannot physically be with her to celebrate, i hereby dedicate this post to her.

Dear silly friend, I frankened a polish for you and you will receive it once you're back home. I hope you like it:

I used loads of different nail polishes for this and this is the outcome, a lilac base with pink shimmer and black, silver, red, pink and blue glitter of different sizes. I swatched it for you:

Daylight:

Direct Sunlight:

Daylight:

Flash:

I hope you like it. It is named after you ;-) There is only one bottle and it is yours!

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Last weekend I had a family party and my second cousin had asked me to bring some nail stuff. So I did and she came up with this!

I used NYC "City Blackout" for the black, Catrice "Aretha's R-E-S-P-I-N-K" for the pink, a black striper, l'Oreal "Confetti" top coat, Essence "Party All Night Long" for the pink flakie gradient and multicoloured caviar from Max.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

A quicky post here! These are my friends nails, and we all want to give her an applause, because her nails are longer than ever! She is a nail biter, and she has restrained herself for weeks! So a nice mani is her reward:

I used Catrice "Purple Reign", Essence "Alpha Better Gamma" and "Break Through" and some saran wrap, to create this. Then I topped it off with some rhinestones from Primark.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

I decided to quickly swatch two of the nail polishes of Catrice's new Limited Edition "Hip Trip" (link here). I was allowed (by myself) to buy two of them, and only two. Someday I'll make money, but today is not that day ;-) Anyway, it just became available so I wanted to show you, so you can decide whether or not to buy these!

The two that caught my eye were "Green Days" and "Wheels on Fire". The blue one is very pretty as well, but I already have something similar. Let's look at Wheels on Fire first. Catrice describes it as Flamingo Coloured. And Flamingo Coloured it is. I have some great nail art in mind, but have as of yet not had time to do that yet. It is very pretty on its own as well though:

It is a bright hot coral and it is PERFECT for summer. It has a frosty shimmer that makes it sooooo pretty! I love it. Two coats were enough to make the mani opaque. This is shown without top coat.

Then for Green Days:

I was a little disappointed by the bad coverage. The colour is very pretty though so it is still worth to paint on an extra coat (which I didn't do because of the lack of time). Catrice describes it as mint, but I would rather call it lime...

On the webpage of Catrice, they explain how to do a saran wrap mani, so I did that with these two colours. I thought it could either be really cool, or really not. It turned out to be the latter (so don't do it with these colours):

That's it folks! I can really recommend Wheels on Fire, it is perfect for summer and would also be a great colour for your toes! They retail for 2.99 euros here in Holland, so it is a good investment ;)

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Here a quick solution to those who suffer from stained nails, either from a specific nail polish colour, or the yellowing of the nails. You can easily take care of that yourself with some household products:

You'll need:

1 tablespoon of baking powder

a little olive oil

a few squeezes of lemon juice

an old toothbrush

Mix it in a bowl and rub it on your nails with an old toothbrush. Rinse with warm water after 5 minutes, and you're done! I would not recommend doing this too often, but every once in a while it couldn't hurt!

Take care of your nails by applying some caring nail balm or butter, to hydrate them. Use the cuticle remover to push back the cuticles and improve nail growth.

Another Friends on Friday is here and this time two of my dear friends, one of whom The Lieutenant, the other the one that gave me the neons :) They requested Cookie Monster and Elmo, so I did my best to replicate that with just nail polish.. I need better brushes! Anyway, here goes:

For the Cookie Monster blue I used Hema no. 12, for Elmo I used Catrice "Fred Said Red". For the cookies I used a brownish nude from Catrice and the rest is just plain brown and white and black from Etos. The googly eyes I got from another friend, and they are just perfect :D I put them on with some nail polish and then sealed them around the edges with a lot of top coat.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Today's mani is inspired by two things: first, I wanted to create something awesome with the gorgeous polishes my Columbian friend got me and second; Cutepolish put this in my head and I had to do it! The two merged and this is their baby:

I used Vogue "Neon Mango", "Neon Limón", "Neon Violeta" and "Cítrico" for the orange, green, pink and yellow respectively. For the blue, I used Hema no. 12. The Vogue neons have a matte finish, which is great (and dries fast)! Application is very easy, though opacity is not reached with two coats. Since I was going to do nail art anyway, I only applied a third layer for the yellow. Then I took out a black striper and outlined my nails. Then, with a white striper, also from Vogue ("Blanco Armino"), I painted a white curve and with some white and my trusty dotting tool, I placed a dot beneath the curve. Then I sealed everything with a fast-drying topcoat and then mattified it again with 2 layers of Hema Matte top coat. (This may seem redundant, but I wanted the whole design matte, and since matte top coat tends to smear the design, I first used a normal one.)

I love it! It seams as though my nails are fake, make-belief paper thingies. And the colours, whoa! Love them!!

Monday, May 20, 2013

Today we have George and Hugo, suffering from gold fever. George Blueney had already a spot in the previous collection, but the continued this gorgeous blue in their new collection. Hugo Moss is new, and as was George, irresistible already because of its name ;) It is a deep dark green creme, that reminds me of a deep dark forest.

Have a look at George:

With flash:

Daylight:

George is sleek, cool and grey, with a mysterious shimmer that makes him (oops! I mean 'it') irresistible. Gorgeous! Application is fantastic, 2 easy coats and done. Next up is Hugo, so here we go:

Look at him shine.. Deep green cream polish goodness. However, two coats is not quite enough, which was a disappointment. As you can see, there's still some vnl on the pinky. But it doesn't bother me much. I used this polish as my base for the feather nail decal and it looked majestic. I loved it. It does however stain a lot on the skin, so use a basecoat (I suspect it will also stain the nail a lot) and lacquer neatly (look at my index finger, I tried cleaning it up, but it would just not go!). I think this polish is amazing for fall and winter, but also whenever you need something classy that is other than red or pink.

Now for some nail art, I chose Essence "Gold Fever":

It is an awesome gold glitter polish, with gold and red microglitter, small gold glitter and bigger silver glitters, that really makes it special. First let's see some feverish Hugo Moss:

Sparkle sparkle in the sunlight! (This is my right hand, so a little less neat ;) ).

Now cool George could use some warming up, so I built up a gradient (which is ridiculously easy with this polish, just put some on your sponge and sponge upwards from the tip to the base, to get this effect with only one go!):

Daylight:

With Flash:

With matte topcoat:

I adored this mani. It is true George Blueney Glitter and Glamour. What do you prefer, shiny or matte?